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After the news of Maurizio Sarri's almost certain departure broke last night, he has emerged as a front-runner to take Antonio Conte’s place at Chelsea, if one is to believe Marca's report from this morning.
Despite Aurelio De Laurentiis' common mood swings and frequent flip-flopping in regard to whether Sarri would stay, the Italian club have reportedly already found a new manager in former Chelsea boss, Carlo Ancelotti, and are set to appoint the man with the glorious eyebrows as Sarri’s successor in the coming days.
This side of the story should be taken with a pinch of salt as I'm not sure how or why Spanish news outlet Marca would have any insight on this particular scoop involving two Italian managers, as well as clubs from England and Italy. Welcome to Silly Season, I guess.
Napoli had been attempting to negotiate a new contract for Sarri for well over 6 months and, at one point, it seemed to have been a done deal with the Italian signing a one year extension with increased salary and several concessions about future transfer dealings. However, it's now evident that this wasn't ever the case and the prospect of Sarri-ball coming to a club near you has never been more of a possibility.
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With regard to us, there had already been whispers of preliminary talks between Sarri's representatives and the Chelsea hierarchy taking place a few weeks back, according to Marca and some other outlets. The continuous flow of rumours revolving around a possible employment of the Italian have never really stopped, despite some other managers being 'close' to the Blues, and it thus doesn't come as a surprise that Chelsea might very well be introducing Sarri sooner rather than later.
In any case, something big may happen in the next 24 hours, be that Sarri staying or not.
If you want to freshen up your knowledge on Chelsea's potential new coach, have another read of this one.
The Italian is dead; long live the Italian?